by Silvia Rojas
“Waste of wood?!” Suddenly the said ‘waste of wood’ was in her arms as she moved on to strike him. He dodged out of the way and managed to grab her wrist, stopping her from swinging her staff at him. Out of absolutely nowhere, he pulled out a gun and pointed it right at her forehead. June’s jaw dropped as the nozzle of the gun seemed to touch her head, his eyes set once again in an emotionless glare.
“Don’t take me for a weakling.” Borton almost whispered, but the power of his words was enough for her to understand he wasn’t fooling around with her. He would actually pull the trigger if the need arose and she now realized that he wasn’t as weak as she thought he was. His grip on her wrist was so tight she wasn’t even able to feel her wrist. “I might be lazy, I might be a nerd and I might absolutely detest going outside, but that doesn’t mean you can run over me just like that.”
His glare had gotten so intense, so dangerous that sweat slowly poured out of June’s forehead. His black eyes gazed into her brown ones as he remained unyielding. For a moment, she thought that the weakling she had first seen had been replaced with some sort of a god, who wouldn’t stop at anything but her death. He looked so ready to do the job, and so emotionless that June thought that he didn’t even understand he had her at gunpoint. She tried to stand up to the gaze, but he neither dropped down the gun nor did he look as if he was going to yield, ever. Finally, she gulped and nodded, grabbing her staff with her other hand and putting it inside of the sheath where it belonged in.
“Now that your pitiful brain has slowly come to a proper state of mind, we can move along,” Borton said, lowering his gun. “Don’t get me wrong, I truly am a lazy, utterly useless, waste of space, but that is because I am what I want to be, but it seems that I am the only person here that understands what do we have to do here.”
“Well then, oh great one, what should we do?” she asked sarcastically, her hands wrapped below her bust, her glare never yielding. “And I will tell you this. The second I am home, you go away. I don’t even want to be in your shadow.”
“That is if they are alive,” Borton said, snorting. “Nuclear explosions tend to leave a fallout, in case you didn’t know. If the fallout was too much for your parents, there is a good chance they’re already dead and you can do nothing about it.”
“I believe it when I see it.” The girl huffed and turned around, hiding her worry and panic from him. He sighed and walked behind her, this time at a much more sedated pace. Of course, once again Borton’s word ran in her mind, ‘there was a disaster alarm before the bomb fell’. In his words, there was something horribly wrong outside other than the nuclear bomb. Her answer came in the form of a creature, or a group of them, roaming around in front of the hallway of the 3rd-floor arts wing. This time, it was the job of June to be slackjawed as she looked at the creatures in front of her.
They all had their skins rotten. There was no other way to explain it, their skins were utterly and completely rotten. Other than that, there was gray liquid running down their bodies and their mouths, possibly blood, and they seemed to be mindless, roaming around without a cause.
“Are.... are those ZOMBIES?!” June exclaimed. Apparently, though, it was the wrong thing to do. In an instant, the zombie’s perked up, as if they had heard what she had said. For mindless beasts, they could surely shout loudly as all of them suddenly rushed towards the voice. June paled as she realized one of the most important things about the zombies. They only responded to sound.
Then the combat started. One by one the zombies came for her and Borton. Borton knew this was bad, this was very bad. If things went down the wrong way, there was no doubt he was going to end up dead and he didn’t want to do that, so he did the best thing he could. He ducked and dodged, not removing his pistol. There was a reason why he kept a pistol actually, it was because his father had gifted it to him when he turned 18. Borton had a really good aim, especially with a bow and an arrow and that aim was passed down to guns as well, so he kept the pistol around. Now if people had found out that he had a pistol with him it would have turned out to be a very bad thing as well, but those thoughts were for an entirely different time and space. Right now, he needed to survive.
His reasoning to not use his gun was A, he didn’t have more than 8 shots inside of his gun, and B, the sound of the gun would be so loud that every single one of the zombies would be attracted towards him. As it turned out though, his ‘partner’ wasn’t as handicapped as him. Her stuff came out with a grace he’d only saw belonged to a sword as she danced. And by danced he meant started to bash the unfortunate skulls of the zombie’s in. June’s strikes all would target the heads of the zombies, turning and spinning around on the position she was standing on. Her movements were so powerful, spinning around in circles again and again around her as she repelled the zombies like it was daily work. In the end, she had taken out all the zombies by herself, but Borton didn’t want to take a chance.
“Come on!” Borton exclaimed, starting to run towards the stairs. This time June didn’t even hesitate in following him and ran right behind him, running towards the stairs in the distance. Both of them weren’t far away from each other and neither wanted to even separate right now, especially Borton because he knew if they did separate out, survival was going to be an issue. Lucky enough, they didn’t run into any more of the zombies as they tried to escape out of their college. “We need to get to the parking area. By luck, my bike would be still there.”
“Somehow I doubt a paddle bike would sustain both of us,” June said dryly, running behind him. She might not say it out loud, but she was impressed. He didn’t panic when the zombies had run towards them like she expected him to. Her eyes were on her surroundings as she fought and she had seen his movements, trying to dodge all the zombies and even fighting back a few of them with his fists. While she was surprised that he didn’t use his gun, June was sure that he had a reason to do so for the man, Borton, didn’t seem to be the one to do things without a reasoning. “Or do you have a motorbike?”
“Zeshen ZWU-R,” Borton said, fingering the keys of his bike. “It’s a sports bike. Before you ask, I need to know where your parents live at?”
“18th, Maplewood Street,” June replied hesitantly. “That’s my home as well. I’ll show you the way if you escort me there.”
“I’ll see what we can do. With the state of the city, it is going to be difficult to get even outside the area of the school if you know what I mean.” Borton replied. They stopped running when they reached the ground floor and stuck to the wall, looking at the wall to see if there was anyone, zombies in particular, that wanted to try and kill them. When they found none, and spied that there was no-one blocking their way to the car-park, both of them booked it, not even stopping. “Just keep the voice down for now.”
June didn’t reply, she just ran behind him. Borton led them through the car-park, where they could see more of the zombies in the distance. Surprisingly, there were a very few amount of zombies, all that Borton knew about them was they liked to flock in great numbers. But it was good for them there weren’t more zombies. They didn’t need more.
“Wouldn’t your bike make noise?” June asked as they ran towards the blue and black sports bike in the distance. Borton just grinned at her as they came to a stop in the car-park. He was quick to get his bike out of the park and onto the road, and start it. To her immense surprise, the start of the bike was extremely silent and so was the sound of the engine. “Wow. I thought that bikes were supposed to be better the louder the noise they made.”
“Yes, bikes do make a very delicious voice, I have a silencer on, so the voice won’t be too loud. I like to roam around in the nights, looking for vendors that sell hot chocolate and is the only time I will get out of my house,” Borton said, beckoning her to sit behind him. “In fact, this is the most I’ve run in my entire life. Now get on.”
“Hmph.” She snorted in amusement, the remnants of her previous attitude vanishing as open curiosity bled out of
her. She sat down behind him, her staff clenched between them and wrapped her hands around his waist. “You’re interesting.”
“Oh, no longer a toe-rag now, Ms. Heart?” Borton shot her a smirk as they took off on the bike and outside of the parking lot. “I’m glad I got a promotion, especially such a big one from someone as beautiful as you.”
“Don’t make me smash your head in.” She growled. Why did she say that again? She should have known he was going to say something like that! “And just turn left from the roundabout.”
“Maplewood street is one of the streets in the ‘Woodholm’ area of the city, isn’t it? I know how to get there, a friend lives there,” Borton said, increasing the speed. The skies were still gloomy and they were doing the utter idiotic thing of going towards the rising mushroom cloud in the distance rather than away from it. He shook his head at the sheer waste of common-sense and instead just drove towards the roundabout.
On the other hand, this gave time for June to think about things, especially as to what she was going to do now. Borton at first seemed truly useless, but the gun, his sense of survival, his smartness and the bike, especially the bike, made him from useless to someone she desperately needed. It also didn’t help much that she truly now found him attractive, the mere memory of his glare on her when he’d threatened to shoot her making her shiver. Unknowingly, she pressed her chest into his back, resting her face on his shoulder, but he didn’t comment on it as he was too busy in driving them to her parent’s home.
That glare was so..... hot! So utterly hot! He seemed to change completely! From a 5ft 10 tall man in his late 19s to someone who had experienced much more than just love and lust, especially for males. She liked that he didn’t seem to be focused on her body, like most of the boys her age were, but she wasn’t interested in that way. So what first was slightly resentment and complete and utter hatred for a supposed ‘Lazy Bum’ and ‘Useless Toerag’ turned into curiosity and interest as she looked at the back of the black haired boy’s head.
‘What exactly are you, Borton?’ She thought, looking at the mirror to look at his face. Her hair flew behind her as he only increased the speed to get to their destination. ‘And why are you so lazy?’
Chapter 2- Woodholm.
Woodholm area of the city of Bonzin was a multi-cultural area of the city. People from all religions all over the world settled down in Woodholm and it was also said to be a spiritual hub of the city. There were a lot of shrines, temples and various types of historical and mythical sculptures that made Woodholm one of the most interesting and touristy areas of the city.
The buildings were mostly on the outskirts of the entire area of Woodholm, and most were houses all across the area, with the shrines situated and scattered around. Trees were in abundant and the biggest building in the area, Sharmar Hospital, was the only thing that towered over the entire Woodholm. But what once was a tourist-filled destination before the war, and the spiritual hub of the world had now turned into a pit.
Like the sciences wing of the college, Woodholm had sunk into the ground, buildings and houses crumbling down. Undoubtedly, there was no one that had made it out of the area alive. No one, as there were no sights of life anywhere in the area. Borton looked at it emotionlessly, while June couldn’t control her tears and was openly crying. They were sitting on his bike on the edge of where Woodholm had sunken down to the ground and were looking down at the area. Borton shook his head and sighed.
“God bless their souls,” Borton muttered. “Maplewood Street is that way, isn’t it?”
Pointing to the other end of the sunken hole, where he could see the city which had parted from the fissure. On the other side of the sunken part of Woodholm was where the ‘wood-streets’ were. He called them that because there were 8 of the streets named after some sort of a wood or the other and they couldn’t care more about it.
“Yes.” June nodded, gulping as her hope silently rose again. “But.... Dad and Mom should be at work. They don’t work far, they own a restaurant in the area, right on Cherryl Crossing.”
“And is Cherryl Crossing down there?” Borton asked, tilting his head sideways so he could look at her expression. At the shake of her head, he sighed. “Good. At least there is something good going on. I saw the office buildings of my parents, both of them had collapsed and there was no way they would have survived that. The last thing we need to do is the loss of your parents.”
“You’ll take me all the way to Cherryl Crossing?” June asked, surprised. “But why? I told you such bad things!”
“All of them were true.” Borton simply replied. He turned the bike around and to an adjacent street alongside the sunken city. “Let’s see, if the Springtide Road leads us there.”
June nodded, her face this time buried in his back. She didn’t want to think the worse, she didn’t. She didn’t want to lose her parents, no way did she want to lose them, but all the facts only pointed to her losing her parents. She gulped and instead stopped focusing on what was around them and focused on the warmth that Borton seemed to emit. Without a doubt the warmth that he seemed to emit only made her further tired with the entire situation and in seconds, she had fallen asleep, her hands wrapped tightly around his stomach and her head buried into his back, the emotion of the day catching up to her.
Borton, though showing a firm exterior, was trying his best not to cry. He knew that he was no longer with his dad and mom, and he knew that there was nothing that he could do about it. His parents were dead, or worse turned into Zombies. There were a lot of them, apparently, the lack of the Zekes, as he remembered the video games calling the Zombies, was once again the act of luck like the fissure avoiding them in school. They were very lucky that they had been able to get out of the school without any trouble with the Zombies and Borton was glad he’d stopped June from hitting him or running off without him. At least he could make sure she was okay and with her parents in the worst case scenario.
He noticed her grip slowly slackening on his stomach, yet remaining firmly tight, and realized she probably went to sleep. He didn’t care, right now he only needed to drive and he knew that the Zombies in front of him would only make a hindrance if he let the bike, or the ends of the staff, collide with them. He shook away his thoughts and hoped they could find a place to rest safely soon because all he himself wanted to do was go to sleep. He was tired of all this, and it hadn’t even been an hour since the fallout.
‘Fallout, how literal.’ He snorted. ‘Not only a nuclear fallout, but also a Zombie apocalypse. What was missing? Aliens? I’m sure there’s someone out there that’s a disguised Martian waiting to invade the planet.’
Turning on the street in front of him again, Borton steered his bike into another gear, and now was much faster as he chose the bridge, hopefully, it was actually stable and not broken. Things turned bad when suddenly the bridge lurched and from behind him, it started to break and crumble away.
“Shit!” He exclaimed, looking behind at the bridge slowly falling down and only accelerated further, trying his best to avoid getting caught up in the crumbling bridge and fall to their bloody deaths. His shout woke June up, who instantly tightened her grip. She looked at the man, slightly irritated, but then she saw the mirror and the falling bridge behind her.
“Oh shit! Faster! Faster!” She exclaimed. Borton would have commented on her choice of words but right now they were in the process, or at least he was, in saving their lives so he didn’t comment and wisely only accelerated further. They barely avoided getting caught in the crumbling bridge and shot off away from the bridge and towards the roads ahead. “Why the heck did you choose a bridge?”
“Because it was empty, and I didn’t know it would break,” Borton replied, slowly slowing down as they came to a turn. Turning onto the Cherryl Road, that led to the Cherryl Street, Borton was proud of himself as he had managed to safely get the 2 of them from the start of the Woodholm all the way to the middle without dying and in fairly less time to boot. “G
o to sleep, we’ve gotten 10 more minutes.”
“I don’t care, I only need to see my parents,” June said back. Borton looked up at the sky, watching the clouds slowly gathering again. When the nuclear bomb had struck, all the clouds had parted away, leaving only the clear, blue skies on top, but the cloud was back, and the rain wasn’t going to be something good. It was going to be influenced by radiation and that wasn’t a rain they wanted to get soaked in. “There! That’s their restaurant!”
Pointing to a fairly nice looking hotel named the Launder, Borton once again found himself confused by the name and instead just steered towards the Restaurant. From the outside, it looked in fairly good shape but it was the inside that mattered. June instantly booked for it inside, walking inside the broken glass door and looked for her parents. What she found wasn’t something she’d want to see, ever.
All the patrons and the people that had come to eat had turned into Zombies, moaning and groaning as they bumped into each other, and ignored their undead carcasses. June looked in horror as a woman that looked like her taking a part of the strange behavior of the Zombies and then looking for her father. He was not a Zombie, lucky enough, but he was dead. His body had a lot of glass stuck in it and he seemed to have died before he could turn due to the glass. Blood was running down his cuts and shards.
“No,” June whispered, her hands covering her mouth. “No, no, please no!”
Her words had caught the attention of the 5 or so Zombies currently in the sitting area of the Restaurant as they looked up at her. Her own mother was the first one to rush at her, the others following. June watched her mother run for her, her hands outstretched and looking ready to kill her or at least bite her.
